@northwesty I’m not sure anyone here is doubting Bishop’s comments that ND classes have typically been @ 24% legacy. Whether that’s soon to be outdated is anyone’s guess. The article you linked above quotes Bishop as saying, "We need to keep doing a better job of finding high-ability, low-income students to apply” and the article’s author comments, “All of those schools (ND, UVA, GTown, Princeton, Harvard) have signed on to or plan to join the American Talent Initiative, a Bloomberg Philanthropies-backed effort to enroll 50,000 more low- and moderate-income students by 2025”
The more important number is actually the relative acceptance rate for legacy applicants – the relationship between the acceptance rate for legacy students vs the acceptance rate for general applicant pool. And ND’s is on par with those at other top schools. Per your linked article – “At the University of Notre Dame, the University of Virginia and Georgetown University, the admission rate for legacies is about double the rate for the overall applicant pool, according to data from the schools. At Princeton University, legacies are admitted at four times the general rate, or roughly 30% compared with about 7% overall over the past five years, the school says.Legacy applicants at Harvard University were five times as likely to be admitted as non-legacies, according to an analysis of admissions data from 2010 through 2015. The numbers—33.6% for legacies and 5.9% for those without parental ties—were submitted in a June court filing…”
THAT ^^ is the number that matters because that is the true reflection of the universities’ attitudes toward legacy applicants. That is the true representation of the advantage - i.e. at ND a legacy has twice the chance of being accepted, at Princeton a legacy has 4x the chance of being accepted, etc. That is where the “card” comes into play. The card is given at the time of acceptance (not enrollment).
Then, there are other factors that affect the percentages to which you keep referring – “how much of the final enrolled class at any school ends up being legacy”. Clearly, according to the data in the article, this number is relatively high for ND vs top schools. Maybe it’s because accepted legacies choose to enroll at ND at a higher rate than other schools? Maybe it’s because some of the schools have lower overall acceptance rates? Maybe it’s that legacies account for a larger share of the overall applicant pool at ND vs other schools? For example, your article notes “Legacies made up roughly 5% of the applicant pool and 15% of this fall’s entering class at the University of Virginia”. Perhaps legacies make up more than 5% of the applicant pool at ND, so with an equally high “legacy acceptance advantage”, more legacies end up being in the class. (I don’t know that’s the case because I don’t know the % of legacy applicants typically in NDs overall applicant pool)
The 24% and other numbers you keep quoting are not true measures of the power of the card. They are the end result of the process. They represent how many legacies who got in using that card actually choose to enroll. Again - this pool will be larger to begin with and/or more motivated to enroll at some schools vs others. But that card is no more powerful at ND than it is at other top schools.
I’m relatively new to the college admissions process…one kid down, four to go. When my third down the line is applying, in 4 years from now, I won’t be relying an Bishops comments from 2015 as a true indicator as things do change over time. That is what I mean when I say comments will become outdated.
@waitingmomla “we need to do a better job finding high-ability, low-income students to apply” is part of NDs initiative to “expand the ND family”.
I appreciate your perspective on the numbers.
As applications rise annually and reported admissions stats continue to increase…imo, it is reasonable to conclude that it is becoming more difficult for both legacy and non legacy to be admitted.
My MIL gave me an ND admission brochure from the early 90s. If I can find it, I’m curious what legacy admit rate was back then. I recall the overall admit rate was 42%. She also gave me Saint Mary’s admissions brochure from the 1960s…very fun to see. Things do seem to evolve over time.
@waitingmomla “Maybe it’s that legacies account for a larger share of the overall applicant pool at ND vs other schools?”
Straight from Don Bishop’s mouth (2012): 8% of our applicant pool are legacies.
Straight from Don Bishop’s mouth (2016): “about” 8% of our applicant pool are legacies
Just to carry this out to its obvious conclusion… 8% of this year’s 20,370 applicants would be 1,630 legacy applicants.
If the acceptance rate for legacy = 36% (i.e., approximately 2X the overall acceptance rate of ~17.7%), that would be 587 of the 1,630 legacies got admitted.
If the yield rate is ~80% for admitted legacy students, that means 470 legacies enrolled.
470 enrolled legacies / 2,050 entering freshmen = 23% of the incoming class would be legacy. Over the past 6 years, ND’s entering classes have ranged between 22-24% legacy.
(Note that the acceptance rate for legacies would be more like 38-39% if the yield rate on legacies were “only” 75%… which is still a very impressive yield.)
Don’t believe anyone who claims that half of legacy applicants get into ND. It’s under 40% now, and could be as low as 36% depending on whatever yield rate ND enjoys with its legacy acceptees.)
@My5Kiddos Having studied ND’s data in great detail over these past 2 years, I’ve actually found that Don Bishop’s comments from as far back as 2012 carry validity even today. Yes, the overall stats have continued to go up and the acceptance rates have gone down, but I’ve found that running the math on ND’s admissions is a lot easier than it is for some other schools.
For example, another school I’m looking at is Emory. Their admissions staff uses a lot of stats between Oxford College, Emory College, and overlapping applications to both schools such that it’s pretty difficult to determine the true admissions rate. Another school I’m looking at is Vanderbilt, and Vandy is verrry careful about when it provides absolute numbers and when it provides percentiles. With Vandy, my impression is that they do a good job of not being too explicit about the stark differences in their ED vs. RD pools.
Notre Dame is among the most straightforward of the schools on admissions math, and the math tends to hold fairly true over numerous years as ND does not seem to be one of those schools that has artificially drummed up the application numbers so that it can report an impressively low acceptance rate.
http://www.thehoya.com/legacy-status-tips-admission-scales/
This will probably make @waitingmomla mad, but check out how Gtown describes its legacy program (really no big deal) versus its description of ND’s.
Gtown has one-third the legacy students that ND does. But (like ND) has a legacy admit rate about double the overall admit rate.
You could certainly argue the legacy strength/boost is the same (2X versus 2X). You could also argue that the 7 vs. 24% differential is because the Gtown spawn just don’t drink the Kool Aid at the rate that the ND kids do. But that seems like a stretch to me.
@GeronimoAlpaca Thanks so much for that 8% figure. It’s funny, I was thinking of tagging you in my comment to ask if you knew it because I know you are usually a font of information 
Thanks also for the illustration. That is exactly what I’m talking about.
The 24% is the product of (A) the legacy admissions advantage (card), but also (B) the % of legacy in the overall applicant pool and © the yield rate on accepted legacies.
Only A is a reflection of the attitude/choices of the schools toward legacies – this number is similar for ND vs the top schools in the article. The other two pieces are the results of the attitude/choices of the students applying – these numbers will vary from school to school and year to year.
That the 24% is relatively high for ND vs the other schools with similar legacy advantage is, I think, a compliment to the university in that it’s one reflection of a fiercely devoted and interested alum/legacy base.
“That the 24% is relatively high for ND vs the other schools with similar legacy advantage is, I think, a compliment to the university in that it’s one reflection of a fiercely devoted and interested alum/legacy base.”
Sure. But that also reflects ND’s adopted policy that legacies will fill about 25% of the seats. If you build more available legacy seats (and publicize that to alumni), then more legacy applicants will come.
ND wants a lot of legacies, so it allocates a lot of seats to legacies, and encourages a lot of legacies to apply. One way to encourage those applications (as at other schools) is to dangle an admissions boost.
Is that boost a bit “stronger” than at other peer schools (who don’t promote legacies as much)? Very hard to prove mathematically. But seems like yes is more likely than no.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-notre-dame/189589-how-much-does-a-legacy-status-count-p1.html
This discussion has been going on a long time here at CC.
Interesting the similarities and differences from back in 2006+
This thread says head of admissions reads all alumni apps. Wonder if that is still true today.
I agree that ND is very straightforward with their stats. Way back they used to tell us exactly how many seats they had per prep school in our area. My brother went to ND because he traded a spot with someone who wanted Holy Cross instead. My high school had 2 spots…3 applied, 2 got in, one went. My sister was crushed she didn’t get in…transferred in as a sophomore. I’m thinking this is not how things role these days…but, in my experience ND has always been honest about their stats/data.
@northwesty I probably wont read the article because I usually don’t choose to read things that will make me mad
Based on the earlier article re legacy admission advantage and what you just noted above, I know two things about ND and GTown – they have similar legacy admission advantage (2X) and they have different % of legacies enrolled in their classes (24% and 7% respectively). So referencing my example above…
Total is different for the two schools, yet A is the same. Therefore B or C (or both) have to be different. So I assume either the % of legacy in overall application pool or the legacy yield rate (or both) is higher at ND. It’s not a stretch to me that either or both could be higher. If memory serves, I think your child ended up enrolling at another school (and you aren’t an alum?) so, honestly, maybe you have to experience it to really believe it. My husband is an ND alum. I have witnessed the devotion (of all of my in-laws and his friends) personally over decades and it’s hard to get across to someone who hasn’t experienced it. I used to think it was absolutely bananas - and sometimes still do - but now that my daughter is there, I value it very highly
@northwesty "Sure. But also reflects ND’s adopted policy that legacies will fill about 25% of the seats.
If you build more available legacy seats (and publicize that to alumni), then more legacy applicants will come."
You seem to want to view this through a different prism, which you are free to do. The relevant part, to me, when discussing institutional attitudes toward legacy is that ND offers similar advantage to legacy applicants (aka “the card”) as the other top schools. Depending on how you interpret the data in the article, one could argue that Harvard and Princeton favor legacy even more than ND.
Whether the particular universities have legacy enrollment targets they want based on what they can predict about application or yield data is a different question. If Notre Dame were cranking up their legacy acceptance rates to 65% in order to accomplish a 24% enrollment target, then that would be different. But as it stands now, the boost you get as a legacy applying to ND is similar to the boost you get as a legacy applying to the other top schools
@waitingmomla – many Domers in my extended family, but not in my immediate family.
Totally agree that supply and demand will be related to each other. There’s push and pull.
If ND didn’t want a lot of legacies, it would not set aside so many legacy seats. Without that allocation of seats, there wouldn’t be as many legacy students and as many kids interested in putting in legacy applications. But if legacy families weren’t interested in ND, then those seats wouldn’t get filled up with pretty strong kids.
My perspective was from trying to figure out if my kid (non-legacy) could get into ND. So I was struck when I learned of that XL 24% legacy number. I had a similar reaction when finding some other big allocation numbers at other schools. Like how 55% (crazy!) of the seats at Penn are filled through ED. Or 40% of the seats at Williams go to athletes. Or 67% of the seats at UVA go to in-staters. Which means that if you can’t partake of the featured allocation, then it is extra tough to compete for the remaining unallocated slots. If you really want to get into Penn, then don’t apply RD.
Maybe the ND boost legacy isn’t comparatively much bigger than the legacy boost at some of the peer schools. Maybe it is. No question, though, that the legacy thing is a much bigger piece of the puzzle at ND than elsewhere.
Interesting discussion. Cheers.
@northwesty I definitely agree that legacies are a relatively big piece of life at ND. I think our only disagreement was over the relative strength of their boost, and I am OK to agree to disagree there. Cheers to you too
Over 80% of the students accepted to ND at my kids Catholic HS here in NC have been legacy admits. There are other common factors that surround these and other admits from our school. I will be posting this subject later this fall in a separate thread, and it is sure to open peoples eyes regarding the admissions office and their criteria.
@mark89unc Can you elaborate a little? Were their credentials in keeping with the admitted student applicant credentials that were posted? Any legacy admits I’ve communicated with have been highly qualified.
@mark89unc On your “Chance me” post on February 7, you only graded your Notre Dame supplemental essays as a “C.”
Did you end up getting in during the Regular Decision cycle? If not, it could have been because of the writing supplement, assuming you were honest in your self-assessment. I’ve been following ND admissions very closely for about 2 years now, and those supplements need to be extremely strong to separate out one qualified candidate from another in the huge cluster of students in the 32-36 ACT range that apply to ND.
FYI, at my large suburban high school, in the last 3 years, a total of 5 were accepted to ND (out of 33 applicants). Of those 5, 1 was a legacy admit. I got the totals from Naviance (my school’s Naviance only shows the most recent 3 years of data), and I knew all 5 of the admits personally. Of the admits, the legacy admit had the highest SAT score (1570) but all 4 of them scored either above 1500 on the SAT or 33 on the ACT.
No matter where you ended up enrolling for college, I hope you have a great freshman year. OK, now back to my own college essays… (ugh, what an end to the summer)
Correction: I just re-checked. There were 6 acceptances at my high school. 2 per year for the past 3 years. I don’t know who the 6th admit was. But of the ones I know, 1 legacy, 4 non-legacy. Pretty much in line with ND’s average.
Both those sets of numbers would seem to be what you’d expect to see.
You’d guess that the ND applicant pool coming from a private Catholic HS would likely to have a higher percentage of legacy kids than the ND applicants coming from a suburban public HS. So the Catholic school would have a higher percentage of its admits being legacies.
@waitingmomla @northwesty I have to disagree on the power of the legacy card. Put another way, if it isn’t powerful, ND is lying to its alumni as it tells them something very different. With two ND grads in my family and a niece who was admitted with less than stellar academics, I’ve seen the power of the ND network, especially if the alumni parents are active in their ND club. And when I visited ND, the admissions officers said they were “proud” of having so many members of the class whose parents and grandparents (and siblings) went there.
My view is that ND will maintain its legacy admissions rates while also seeking to admit more low income and URM students. These two objectives are not mutually exclusive although this will put tremendous pressure on students who don’t fall into any of these categories.
Don’t be fooled…legacy is HUGE at ND. Anyone saying otherwise is uninformed or lying.